Sal In Gon and Nyaung Pin Zauk

My last post showed a woman weaving split bamboo beside her rickety house. There are two such houses at either end of Nyaung Pin Zauk that are owned by folk who have no land and can therefore not farm to feed themselves. To exist they cut and sell bamboo from the forest. The woman here was actually weaving split bamboo to make a new wall for her house. These bamboo houses last only about seven years and then have to be rebuilt. This was what she was doing. Despite this poverty their children looked healthy and happy, charging around as children are wont to do!

We visited the primary school and heard the kindergarten singing Baa Baa Black Sheep and Head and Shoulders Knees and Toes – in English! W e gave away toothbrushes and tiny toothpastes but not to the younger children as we noticed one small boy last year was eating the toothpaste!

Tired but happy we returned to Mandalay. We have given away more than 150 pairs of glasses: We have one pair left! This will be joined by another hundred, or so, when I return to Myanmar in April.

The last village was Win Kyaing’s Sa Lin Gon. He had told his parents we were coming with the glasses and it only took a minute or two for their house to be filled with excited villagers most of whom found glasses that helped them.

Of the many villages we have visited over the weeks, only one had electricity. That was the weaving village and only the man-driven loom was electric powered. Only one of the villages has tap water. All the other villages had houses of bamboo thatched with the dried leaves of the toddy palms. They had no services at all and very tricky earth roads on which bullock carts roll happily but Win San’s taxi – not so happily.

My exhausted camera battery has been recharged. Mine has not – so I will write more tomorrow.

I was very happy with our five-hour drive from Pakokku to Nyaung Pin Zauk, which is Saya Htay and Win San’s village, because I could just sit and do nothing! Once we arrived, there would be lots to do.

Win Kyaing’s, village has tap water. Sa Lin Gon was fortunate a couple of years ago when UN Habitat helped them to pipe water to each house in the village. We are very happy for them, but unfortunately the Clean Drinking Water Project at Nyaung Pin Zauk has not fared well. The villagers have dug the long trench for the pipe that will carry the water from the saiye (spring) to the yidwin (well) in the village and have cleared the area necessary for the water tank in the village. But so far, no outside help has been forthcoming. We are not giving up hope. Some things take time and we want to believe it will happen. I can’t bear the fact that the women have to walk two kilometres with a water pot on their head for the four summer months that the drinking water lake is dry.

My camera won’t work. The battery is exhausted. So am I, but we still have two villages to visit. I was too tired even to use this very fast wifi to report on the last two villages before we reached Pakokku. At the first, I heard Win San say ‘widow’. This reminded me of last year when he told me a woman was a window. A window? I repeated, puzzled. Yes, he replied, a window like you. Ah, now I understood. She was a widow!

Chauk Kan is a weaving village. Along with sesame, peanuts and rice they grow cotton. There is electricity, which some people are able to access. There is one huge automatic machine run by a man: the ladies have foot operated looms. We like giving glasses to people who need them to do their job as this benefits the whole family by bringing in an income. There was much hand shaking as one after another left Saya Htay wearing a pair of glasses and came over to me before they set off for their looms again. One elderly man told us he could throw his stick away because now he can see where he is going. The decibels rose in excitement as one woman, who was all but blind, found a pair of glasses that enabled her to see again. It was a wonderful moment. Yesterday we gave away 36 pairs of glasses, which may be our record for one day!

Ananda Pagoda Festival, Bagan

 Often at pagoda festivals there are concerts in the evening. A stage is constructed within a few hours and the audience sits on the ground in the open air watching Burmese classical dancing and modern dancing too, interspersed with singers and comedians. The concerts mostly start at nine in the evening and can last all night. Whether this one lasted all night, I cannot say, because some of us need our beauty sleep.

Next morning we returned to the Ananda to take photos in daylight as last night’s were a bit dark. I noticed that on the top of the head of all the Buddha images here there are little topknots of hair. Apparently when the Buddha left the palace and his staff he decided his long hair would need attention by him and he didn’t want this distraction from his meditation. He therefore wound his hair into a topknot. They say only Buddha images from Bagan have this distinctive feature.

It is especially sad that the Ananda was damaged in the earthquake as the government of India has a ‘Project of Conservation and Preservation of Ananda Temple at Bagan’.The pagoda is now a pale sandstone colour and is clean but, worryingly, they have used chemicals to clean it.

We visited two nearby villages to give away glasses. At Thiri farming village we made nine people happy. At Gandgar village where the people either farm or fish in the Ayeyarwady that flows at the bottom of the hill, we made eight people happy with eye-glasses and two others with sunglasses. Invariably a young person in a village will come forward to help Saya Htay take the glasses in or out of their cases. Here a young man helped me write their (difficult) names. So sunglasses to give away are very helpful too.

Bagan is an ancient city, proclaimed so by UNESCO.  It is celebrated for its more than 1,000 pagodas, its lacquerware and weaving workshops, its many splendid hotels and its many more restaurants. All looks affluent and business ventures thrive but all is not so a few kilometres outside the city walls. The people there are very poor, though a sign over a teashop reads: Myanmar Brimming with Confidence!

We reach Aye War village of 250 people who farm peanuts, beans and rice. Their toddy palms may be the tallest I’ve seen reaching up 60 to 70 feet. The toddy tappers climb them twice a day cutting into the top of the tree and bringing down the sugary sap. In the village the liquid is boiled until it has evaporated and only jaggery remains. Left unboiled, the liquid becomes alcoholic hence: toddy. I’m always happy when we give glasses to toddy tappers as one false move at the top of the tree could be (and has been) fatal.

People at Gyo Gan village said they were amazed that we visiting them. I was amazed too given the track was mainly several feet of sand. I was sure we’d need bullocks to pull the car out. With Win San’s many years experience over all sorts of terrain we didn’t get stuck. The villagers were great fun: laughing at each other’s ‘new look’ then going to their houses to bring us one gift after another of peanuts. Some were even shelled and ready to snack on!

In the two villages we visited that day we gave away 36 pairs of glasses.

Bagan

You could be forgiven for believing you’d come to a fair when you arrive at the Ananda Pagoda Festival in Bagan. There are roundabouts and slides for children, tall men are playing volley ball in a temporary volley ball court and then there are rows upon rows of temporary shops set up in lane after lane. You can buy practically everything you might ever need and much that you don’t. Children’s toys include sub-machine guns, furry teddy bears the size of a six year old and mysterious little paper puppets which you could believe are dancing on their own so clever is the man seated on the ground who is operating them. There is every item of clothing including extremely modest pink bras and corsets that would cover most of the body, woven longyis, Shan shirts and tee shirts announcing ‘I am the best’ etc. Some stalls are piled high with woven fabric in the different designs that belong to each of the ethnic groups and to different regions of Myanmar. Nearby Pakokko is famous for brightly coloured furry blankets, which are useful in January as nights are cold in Bagan.

There are photo stalls displaying photos of Aung San Suu Kyi and important men wearing the traditional male head attire: gaung baung which are caps with a jaunty upturned tweak on one side of the head. There are smiling babies and many views over Bagan. And of course there is much lacquerware as Bagan is famous for its lacquer workshops.

Bagan’s spires still stand tall but many, including the Ananda Pagoda are enshrouded with bamboo scaffolding - evidence of last years 6.8 earthquake. The Ananda was built in the 11^th century by King Kyansittha. He named it after one of the Buddha’s closest relatives who was one of his disciples.

At the time of King Anawratha, also the 11^th century, but before King Kyansittha, the Pyu people lived in what was then Pagan. They had done so since the 8^th century. They had their own religion and a distinctive appearance. Both males and females wore exactly the same costume and they never cut their hair. The only difference that might occasionally be discerned was that the men wore tattoos on their thighs. King Anawratha tried to convert them to Buddhism but they adamantly refused and for this they were sent away. They settled in nearby Halin.

The statues of the Buddha inside the Ananda are huge and imposing and yet at the same time loving. There are eight mudras depicted by the Buddha’s hand positions. The main four images here depict protection, teaching, peace and the last where he is holding a lotus flower shows he wanted to say something about the next life: that it should be beautiful as a flower.

Shwebo and Chattin Nat. Pk.

Between Katha and Shwebo in Sagaing Division we came across some tiny huts before the village of Taw Sa Khan. We have refined our search for the poorest people. There are always split bamboo or leaf shacks at either end - but outside - a village. Here live the people who don’t own land so therefore cannot live in the village. Having no land, they cannot farm. How do you feed yourselves asked Saya Htay? We cut up trees (Eucalyptus not teak) and sell the wood in Shwebo or we make charcoal and we can eat bamboo shoots. These people are really poor and it gives Win San, Saya Htay and I much happiness to give them such useful gifts. Thank you to all who gave them.

Quote of the day: Dogs bark at me here, I commented. Yes, Myanmar dogs don’t like the smell of foreigners, said Win San. So much for Givenchy, I thought. 

We didn’t make it to Chattin National Park in Sagaing Division. We drove for three hours with the road getting worse and worse. When it became really bad I asked Win San to turn around. We were all disappointed. However, I decided I could forego the possibility of seeing leopards, tigers, deer and many snakes (cobras I was informed) rather than the probability of having to buy Win San four new tyres for his taxi.

The day ended well with, yes, you’ve guessed it – giving away glasses! At Leshu village they are farmers growing mainly peanuts, rice and various species of bean. This evening many will be reading for the first time in a while.

Today we head back to Mandalay for a couple of days before setting forth to Bagan and the Ananda Pagoda Festival. 

Burmese Days

 Katha

After a day’s drive south from Myitkyina we arrived at Katha – George Orwell country. Thanks to Audible.com I am listening to Burmese Days, which is making our visit even more memorable.

We only managed one village for the glasses today. The main village of Aung Thar, still in Kachin State but on the border with Sagaing Division, grows among other crops two seasons of rice: summer and rainy season as well as masses of bananas. We saw cows, goats, geese and chickens, so the main village must be quite well off. Not so in the part just outside. Here lived the really poor people who can’t actually live in the village as they have no land. We were particularly happy when four of them found glasses that helped them. Daw Gyi who is 70 said she didn’t know about glasses but a good nat had brought her some!

Burmese Days

Today we devoted to George Orwell and Burmese Days. We visited Orwell’s house, the Deputy Commissioner’s house (1892), which was Macgregor’s house in the novel, the hospital, tennis court (1924), prison and cemetery. Men were still playing tennis, the prison was terrifying with not only concrete walls metres thick but sharpened bamboo staves hammered into the ground if you managed to make it over the wall. The cemetery had been replaced with a library, and several offices built over it. The club still stands but is now an office and was locked.

George Orwell’s house is rather the worse for wear. It is now occupied by the police who look after it for the government. The house is two storey built of teak and raised on brick stilts. I gazed out of an upstairs window at a huge Banyan tree and wondered if Orwell had looked out onto this tree when he visited Macgregor.

From 1926-27 Orwell or rather Eric Arthur Blair served as Deputy Superintendent of Police. In 1934 he published Burmese Days based mainly on the society in Katha – known in the book as Kyauktada. It depicts the arrogance and aggressiveness of the British and the misuse of power of a Myanmar official: U Po Kyin.

Katha was originally named Kan Tha, meaning pleasant view, by King Alaung Situ of the Pagan Dynasty. He admired the river bank with a pagoda standing on the bank of the Irrawaddy now known as the Ayeyarwady. Now in January the river has much less water, so the view is different but the fertile mud the river leaves behind means it is great for farming.

Nat Pauk Elephant Camp

I discovered some useful facts today: Sitting on my shoes was kinder to my bottom than the steel bars of the howdah and my bare feet on the elephant’s neck was not just warmer, but softer too. We are at Nat Pauk Elephant Camp half an hour by car (not by elephant) from Katha. We had to arrive before 10.00am otherwise the temperature is too hot for the elephants, and their sin oozie (mahouts) hobble them and let them loose overnight in the jungle until 4.00am the next morning. The previous government owned all the teak forests in Myanmar for which these elephants were used for timber extraction. All the teak was sold to China. The new government has stopped this. The teak now belongs to the people and remains in Myanmar. The sin oozie (in their 20s) are pleased to be retired! Presumably they earn from visitors to their Elephant Camp and from taking them on elephant walks through the forest.

The elephants greeted us with much trumpeting when we arrived and the small ones, especially, lumbered up and down inside their paddock thrusting through their trunks in the hopes of treats (bananas of course). The smallest was only four months old and was an orphan, her mother died soon after her delivery. She was obviously loved and pampered by the sin oozie who fed her by bottle and who had taught her tricks like standing on her head with her chubby legs in the air! He had also taught her to bow with her head touching the ground which she did each time we gave her a banana. Small she was, but when another calf tried to muscle in on the bananas, she pushed it away with a back foot. It was like kicking – but softer owing to her chubbiness!

I have vowed I will never again come to northern Myanmar in January. It is freezing – and of course the mountains don’t help! So I was most grateful as we passed a banana plantation (for elephant treats) that the sun came out and the day warmed up a little. But as the sun came up the elephants had to return to the cool (read freezing) forest and we made our way back to Katha and a hot cup of coffee.

Macau Festival, Kachin State, Myanmar

 Yesterday was a long one. We left Mandalay for our six-hour drive to Indaw in Kachin State. In the event it took nine hours due to road conditions. Some were good with only small holes and rocks scattered upon them. Others were more holes than road and some roads were not roads at all. Win San was fantastic weaving his way in and out and around.

The end of the day happily surprised us. Indaw has a new hotel, imaginatively called the Inn Daw. It was sparkling clean, everything worked and we were treated as hallowed guests.

Today the drive will be shorter (I pray). We are headed for Myitkyina further north in Kachin State and not far from China. We are going to the Manau Festival, which has not been held for three years due to fighting. The fighting has now moved elsewhere apparently and the festival is on.

Next day we arrive at the arena to learn that the Manau Festival has been cancelled ‘due to political disturbances’ As these disturbances come out of guns that are almost as tall as I am, I decide I can live without that excitement.

We pull our disappointed selves together and substitute Kachin State Day. But it is only for a morning whereas the Manau was for a week. And we have driven so far and for so long. We are now moving on to Plan B.

We are in Kachin State in the north of the country. To the west is India to the east is China. Myitkyina, the capital, is 147 metres above sea level and surrounded by mountains, the highest being Hkakabo Razi at 5,881 metres. This, coupled with the time of year, ensures it is very cold night and morning

The people of Kachin State include the Jinghpaw, Lisu, Rawang, Lhovo, Lachid and Zaiwa. Each group has its own language, traditional dress and traditional dances. The Kachin want independence from the rest of Myanmar, which is where the political disturbances and fighting come in. But here today it is all peace and goodwill towards everyone and nobody is in army uniform. Far from it: the only males who looks vaguely intimidating are Rawang tribesmen as they wear up-curved boars’ teeth around their wide brimmed hats. The women sparkle with silver in intricate patterns forming capes around their shoulders and bedecking their headdresses.

Kachin State Day commences with marathons run by four age groups (my age group was not among them) According to who was giving me the information, the marathon was eight miles or 16 kilometres or maybe 16 miles. Anyway, it was a long run.

Then the VIPs arrived from Naypyidaw and Yangon. They will give away the prizes and doubtless make speeches. The prizes for each group were the same and were well worth winning. First, was 500,000 kyat (approximately US$500), second 300,000 kyat and third 200,000 kyat.

Next came aerobics where bodies and limbs were contorted in ways possible only to the young. Finally there were dances by the Jinghpaw, Lisu, Rawang, Lhovo, Lachid and Zaiwa groups wearing their fabulous traditional costumes.